what is a missionary?

long time no see, eh? sorry about that. instead of try to capture what has happened, i want to share two quotes that struck me recently. i am visiting another InnerChange team, and have the privilege of joining their team rhythms for a couple of weeks, including reading a book together. since i have a bit of extra time on my hands, i read the whole book (it's around 150 pages) .. and these two quotes really stood out to me. the book is called Christianity Rediscovered by Vincent J. Donavan -- and well worth a read. both of these struck me as right and true. i'd be interested to hear your thoughts (if anybody is still reading this.. :)

"It is a cleansing and humbling thought to see your whole life and work reduced to being simply a channel of hope, and yourself merely a herald of hope, for those who do not have it." (page 143)

"I think rather it might be put this way: a missionary is essentially a social martyr, cut off from his roots, his stock, his blood, his land, his background, his culture. He is destined to walk forever a stranger in a strange land. He must be stripped as naked as a human being can be, down to the very texture of his being. St. Paul said Christ did not think being God was something to be clung to, but emptied himself taking the form of a slave. He was stripped to the fiber of his being, to the innermost part of his spirit. That is the truest meaning of poverty of spirit. This poverty of spirit is what is called for in a missionary, demanding that he divest himself of his very culture, so that he can be a naked instrument of the gospel to the cultures of the world." (p144)

to mark or not to mark ..

i don't particularly enjoy writing in books. this is something i learned from my family, i'm sure. some people use pens and highlighters and colored pencils .. making it easy to tell what they thought when they read a certain book. but i enjoy reading books over again. at least the good ones! and i prefer to read it again without necessarily remembering the same thoughts.

the first time that i remember actually writing in a book was junior year of college. for a class called 'sport and society' we read Friday Night Lights and then needed to write a paper applying issues we'd discussed in class to the book. it was a good book, and i enjoyed it, but i knew that to write a good paper i would need quotes. so i grabbed a pencil and made light vertical lines next to sentences or paragraphs that stuck out. this was enough for me to later use those in my essay. and not so much that it bothered me or others who borrowed the text.

that same technique .. pencil with light lines running down the margins of the paper has continued with me, even though i still don't use it very often. but i run into problems when i read authors like frederick buechner (currently that means A Room Called Remember) or eugene peterson (currently Eat This Book) .. because there are sometimes so many consecutive thoughts and phrases and ideas that i could simply put lines along the edges of all the pages and call it good. but i refrain myself and try to only put lines next to the salient sentences. (i try!) and .. it usually means that i will just need to revisit their books periodically, reading with new eyes and trying to let a little more of their wisdom become my own.

is seven too many?

i was looking at my stack of books this morning, and what i saw struck me as rather eclectic. books are wonderful. i read something in a book every day. it's not just something to do, but is .. part of the way i understand the world. part of how i learn about myself. part of what gives me joy. at the moment, i'm working on a number of books. all of them have such different flavors that when i sit down, i think about my mood, how much i can focus, how thoughtful i'm feeling, which ones need to get read soon .. all sorts of factors go into which one i actually read on a particular day. at any rate, here are the books that i'm currently reading ..

harry potter and the half-blood prince .. j.k. rowling

a short history of nearly everything .. bill bryson

interior castle .. teresa of avila

celebration of discipline .. richard foster

the dangerous act of worship .. mark labberton

well connected: releasing power, restoring hope through kingdom partnerships .. phill butler

power under: trauma and non-violent social change .. steven wineman

taking a Sabbath

apologies for my long absence. too much has happened .. and i haven't been sure what to write about or how to summarize .. so i'm just starting with this week. i'll try to be more consistent about writing, with God's help :)

each week i make a point to take a Sabbath. and it really does need to be taken. there are so many things to be done, and people to spend time with, and pushes toward accomplishing -- if i don't set aside a day, it won't happen. so what is Sabbath? a day to rest. to be refreshed. to spend time in God's presence. to not work. to be creative. those are a few of the 'goals' i have each Sabbath.

this past week, when i woke up on Sabbath morning, i really wanted to finish my book. but i curbed my desire for a while and spent some time with God in His Word, savoring His truth and yummy coffee at the same time :D and then i pulled out this book. it's a book i've read before at least twice, and every time i read it i understand new truths. or old truths more deeply. this particular book has a Christ figure .. and even though the book is not explicitly Christian when i read it, my soul understands it spiritually. all that to say .. i spent a good two or three hours reading, and wasn't sure if i should feel guilty. that i wasn't journaling and reading my Bible and listening to God in silence. but then God reminded me that He is not limited to the Word. He graciously allowed me to commune with Him and take delight in His character through this amazing story. and that's a pretty good way to spend a Sabbath!

you know you're reading war and peace when..

you have been reading a book for almost 4 months and aren't done yet

you recently read a page with a palindromic number .. that had four numbers (1001)

you are more than two thirds finished, and what's left is still longer than your typical entire book

you read a name like "bezukhov" and you have a mental picture in your head, and know how he grew up and how he came into money, and who he's married to, and what sorts of questions he regularly asks of life

you know more about the russian wars in the early 1800s (and Napolean and Russian life) than you ever learned in high school history class

you are enjoying the book, and recently thought .. oh no! there are only 400 pages left (in that you aren't sure if you want the story to end or not)

wisdom distilled

ummm... so i haven't posted in almost three weeks. which is rather a long time. and i do apologize. i want to make a habit of posting once a week or so. so that you find something new when you happen to check every so often. instead of just the same ol' posts. thanks for looking again, though!

i've recently been reading a book called Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today by joan chittister. and really enjoying it. i don't like writing in books (and this one i'm borrowing so have not choice!) but sometimes i just have to write down certain quotes or thoughts. and i have a small journal where i've done this with a few other books that had an impact on me. but i'm writing a lot of quotes down from this book, and wanted to share a couple.

the real monastic walks through life with a barefooted soul, alert, aware, grateful, and only partially at home. (p10)

to pray in the midst of the mundane is simply and strongly to assert that this dull and tiring day is holy and its simple labors are the stuff of God's saving presence for me now. (p31)

humble people walk comfortably in every group. no one is either too beneath them or too above them for their own sense of well-being. they are who they are, people with as much to give as to get, and they know it. (p64-5)

we need to learn that there are some things worth doing in life that are worth doing poorly, if doing them perfectly means we will have destroyed people for the sake of producing the product. (p91)

the problem is that either domination or dependence demands so much less of us than collaboration. (p115)